Life to My Flight

by Lani Lynn Vale

  He turned his head slightly and leaned back before sitting down on the edge of my bed.

  His leg came up to rest at my side.

  “There was a fire,” he started.

  I nodded. I’d remembered that. But they weren’t supposed to be there.

  And speaking of, how had I gotten out?

  Then I knew. Cleo had come. Just like I’d known he would.

  “Everyone okay?” I rasped.

  Silas face went from somber to sorrowful, and I knew instantly that something terrible had happened.

  “What?” I asked.

  Someone from the other side of the bed took my hand, and I turned to see that Cord had it. Then something touched my foot, and I saw that Loki’s hand rested at the top of the footboard. His scarred hand that spoke of tons of fights, held on to my toes through the blanket.

  “Please,” I said as I turned back to Silas.

  He swallowed, causing his beard to bob with the effort.

  “Tunnel died. Complications from smoke inhalation,” he murmured softly.

  My heart sank, and a sob got caught in my throat, causing my raw voice to come out even grittier. “No.”

  The wail of denial came from down deep as I let all the pain and fury pour out of me in just that one word.

  He nodded sorrowfully. “I’m sorry, girl. He died. It wasn’t from anything you did, though.”

  “I testified,” I wailed. “If I hadn’t, he’d have still been alive.”

  My voice sounded ghastly, but I couldn’t keep the words in. They just poured out.

  “Vanessa said not to testify. I should’ve listened. I should’ve listened,” I shook my head frantically.

  “He knew the risks,” a soft-spoken voice said from the doorway. “It was his idea, after all.”

  I turned and looked over Cord’s shoulder to see a slight Hispanic woman with pitch black hair that hung down to her hip in a tight braid, standing at the door. She was wearing scrubs.

  Navy blue with lime green piping.

  The only thing off was the puffiness of her eyes.

  Then it hit me.

  She’d looked so familiar.

  That was because I’d seen her around at a couple Dixie Wardens functions.

  It was Tunnel’s wife, Mina.

  “He knew, just as I did, what was at risk, but he wasn’t doing it for anybody here. He was doing it for his sister,” Mina’s voice cracked.

  Sebastian walked towards the door and wrapped her in his arms.

  She looked so tiny and frail in his arms.

  Tunnel and Sebastian had been roughly the same size.

  Which meant she’d have been dwarfed in Tunnel’s arms as well.

  We all watched in silence as the tiny woman broke down and cried, and I silently wondered why she was wearing her scrubs.

  She wasn’t working was she?

  How many days had it been?

  Had I been asleep long enough for her grieving process to end?

  “You should go home, sweets. Get some rest,” Sebastian murmured into her hair as he kissed the top of her head.

  Tears ran freely down my face as I listened to the two speak.

  “I can’t go home. Not to our bed. Not again. Not without him. It’s too big. You know the last thing he said to me in that bed? That he wanted another baby. I told him he was out of his damn mind.” A sob caught in her throat. “I should’ve taken him up on it. I should’ve relented a few months ago when he’d first brought it up, because maybe if I had, I would be carrying him around with me,” she wept.

  The room was silent except the erratic beat of my heart as long moments passed by.

  Finally, Mina lifted her head from Sebastian’s chest. “I’ll sit here and wait for Cleo to get back. I’ve already requested that they let Torren come in here for a little while so we can make the arrangements.”

  Sebastian nodded and led Mina to the vacated chair near the corner of the room.

  And there we waited, nobody able…or willing…to break the silence.

  ***

  Cleo

  “I can walk, dammit,” I snapped at Baylee.

  Baylee was the vice president of the Dixie Wardens, Sebastian’s, wife.

  “I damn well know you can walk, but your ass is hanging out, and you’re showing the entire hospital,” she snapped back.

  Chastised, I let her tie up the ties in the back so my ass wasn’t on exhibit, and then shuffled stiffly to the door of Rue’s room.

  It’d been a long twenty one hours, but she’d made it.

  Although she’d had quite a bit of smoke inhalation, having her face buried in the couch had saved her life.

  It’d provided an adequate enough seal that smoke couldn’t permeate easily, and offered her enough room for her to breathe as well.

  It turns out that Torren had had to use a computer chair as a battering ram to break through the thin wall connecting Rue’s apartment to the one beside her.

  After fifteen painstaking minutes of trying to get a hole big enough for him to fit through and tearing a ligament in his shoulder in the process, he’d finally gotten through, and just in the nick of time.

  Around the time that we’d seen the back entrance way collapse, Torren had gone through the wall.

  He’d gone out the front, while we’d all been watching the back like hawks.

  I hadn’t known until after we’d arrive at the hospital and I was treated for smoke inhalation that they’d both made it. Though, only because I’d heard the stupid whore who’d been responsible for it all yelling that she should’ve just ‘fucking shot the cunt who refused to die.’

  The stupid bitch had ran through the woods behind Rue’s property and was bitten by a rattlesnake.

  Most likely, she’d be losing her leg.

  If she was lucky, she’d die.

  Because there was no way that I wouldn’t pay all the money I had for her to be put away for life in the most disgusting filth of a jail on earth, just so I could see her suffer.

  And I had a feeling that the majority of The Dixie Wardens felt much the same way.

  I’d found Rue in the next room, unconscious but alive, and had stayed by her side until an hour ago when I’d been told I needed an x-ray of my lungs done.

  Luckily they’d been in good working order. Unluckily, I hadn’t been there when Rue had woken up.

  “She’s okay?” I asked for the fourth time.

  Baylee smiled at me knowingly. “She’s fine.”

  Finally somewhat relieved, I breached the door to Rue’s room, and was a little taken back when I saw Mina in the corner.

  She looked like hell, which was to be expected.

  She’d been on shift when we’d come up to her floor.

  It’d not been very fun to tell her that her husband had died in a fire.

  In fact, twenty two hours later and it still hurt just as much now to see that look on her face as it did when I put it there by telling her that her husband was gone.

  Tearing my eyes away from the grieving widow, my eyes softened when I found Rue scooted over to the very edge of the bed, and Torren lying next to her.

  I owed that man my life, and nothing I could ever do would ever be enough to repay him.

  He said he was just doing his job, but he hadn’t been on shift at that moment in time, and I’d never stop trying to make him realize just what it meant to me to have him save my woman.

  “Hey,” Rue said softly when she caught sight of me in the doorway.

  “Hey,” I rasped back.

  I sounded like I was a four pack a day smoker, and she sounded much the same.

  However, we were alive and that was all I could focus on at that point.

  ‘Cause if I focused on anything else, I just might shatter.

  ***

  Cleo

  “So how do all those people fit in?” Rue asked later that night as we snuggled into the bed.

  After being discharged, we went to my place, and the rest of The
Dixie Wardens had followed, along with the wives.

  Mina had gone home, opting to spend some time with her daughter who was confused as to why her daddy wasn’t coming home ever again.

  The rest of the group had gone home after a long night of comfort food, leaving us by ourselves for the first time in nearly forty eight hours.

  “My boss is Vanessa’s dad’s half-brother. Vanessa has him wrapped around her little finger. She calls him ‘daddy.’ It’s not known, yet, whether they had anything more of a relationship or not, but we do know that Alonzo’s son was the man who tried to break into your place. Now those two did, indeed, sleep together.”

  She grimaced at the visual.

  “How’d she get that medicine?” She asked quietly.

  I scratched my head. “I never heard. But I’ll find out for you if you want to know.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t really want to think about it anymore, to be truthful. I want it all to go away.”

  I hugged her closer, laying my head against her chest.

  Her breathing evened out after a few long minutes, but it took me a very long while.

  Everything kept playing through my mind.

  Could I have done anything differently?

  Rue was the one to stop my overactive mind.

  Her hand raised in her sleep, and her hand connected with the back of my neck, allowing me to relax fully into her.

  I fell asleep with the reassuring sound of her heart thumping underneath my ear.

  Tomorrow would be a bad day, but we’d get through it.

  Chapter 22

  There’s a fine line between pissed, and livid. Cleo crossed that line three days ago. God help you all.

  -Life Lesson

  Rue

  “With brave wings, he flies to where he’s always wanted to be. Paris, Texas,” Mina laughed quietly.

  Watery laughs overtook the crowd, including the somber men on the bench in front of, beside, and behind me.

  I giggled, and the tears that were streaming down my cheeks fell into my open mouth.

  The Dixie Wardens, even ones from other Chapters, filled up the first couple rows normally saved for family.

  Which, I guess, in all honesty, we were his family.

  “He was such a good daddy. I remember the first time he met our girl, Sienna,” Mina wiped her eyes. “He held her up to his face, and breathed in her scent. And what did he say? She doesn’t smell like a baby is supposed to.”

  I smiled through the tears, and then started giggling. Cleo, looking down at me, wrapped his arm around me and brought me into his chest.

  One hand went around his torso as I leaned into him.

  “I had to tell him that she probably would once they managed to wipe the blood off of her,” she smiled wistfully. “That was the best day of my life, second only to the day I married him.”

  We were sitting in the front of the local high school’s auditorium, watching while Mina gave her heartfelt speech.

  When she’d told me she was going to do it, I’d been skeptical, but she’d made it through the first five minutes all right, and had the crowd laughing at that.

  Shaking her head, she placed her hands on the podium one last time before she looked up at the crowd.

  “Tunnel was over the moon four times in his life. The first time, when we got married. The second time, when our daughter, Sienna was born. The third, when he got on with Benton PD. The final time was when he was patched in with The Dixie Wardens MC,” she sniffled.

  I swallowed thickly, seeing each and every man on the row with me stiffen.

  Heads hanging, they listened intently.

  “Tunnel loved The Dixie Wardens. He loved the police department. He loved his life. It wasn’t always that way. We had a tough couple of years, but he made me a promise when we found out I was expecting. And that was that he’d make our girl a life that he would be proud of. And he succeeded by leaps and bounds,” she said as a lone tear fell down her cheek.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said as she looked over the crowd. “He would’ve been so happy.”

  With that, she stepped back from the podium, and the preacher, Reverend Spano, whom I’d met only a day ago, helped her to the edge of the stairs.

  Mina walked down the steps leading up to the stage carefully, then kept walking around the steps until she came to a rest beside Tunnel’s casket.

  Bending over, she wrapped her hands around the flag-covered wood, and rested her head on the top, weeping softly.

  Silas got up and rubbed his hand along Mina’s back, talking to her softly.

  After a moment’s hesitation at what she requested, he turned around and grabbed her vacated chair, placing it so it was facing the coffin.

  She sat down in the chair, facing away from the hundreds of off duty police, firefighters, bikers, and mourning town inhabitants, and placed her head against the wood.

  My heart broke for her all over again.

  Turning my cheek, I buried my nose into the silk of Cleo’s dress shirt, not caring in the least as my tears soaked it through.

  ***

  Rue

  “Why do you think they always have so much food at funerals?” Viddy asked as she covered the fifth pecan pie that was delivered.

  Channing shrugged. “No clue. Just exactly what you need when you’re depressed. Tons of food.”

  I focused on the turkey I was filling a Ziploc bag with and groaned. “I’ve been eating all day. Literally, have not stopped once since we got here over four hours ago.”

  “That’s good. You really haven’t eaten much in a couple of days. I’m surprised you’re not falling down asleep after the last couple of weeks,” Adeline observed.

  I thought about the two naps I’d taken today. One on the seat of Cleo’s truck as we followed the funeral procession, and the second while I sat on Cleo’s lap about an hour before the funeral, and smiled.

  “I took a couple of naps today,” I explained.

  They nodded.

  “I did, too,” Channing agreed.

  “What did y’all think about Tunnel’s choice of music as the casket was lowered?” Baylee asked as she walked into the room and took a seat on the counter beside me.

  I snorted.

  Mina had explained that Tunnel really wanted a certain song to be played at his funeral, and had nearly died laughing when we heard Another One Bites the Dust roll through the speakers.

  Some of the older folks in the crowd found the song horrific; me, I found it perfect.

  It perfectly expressed Tunnel’s love for life flawlessly.

  “That’s Tunnel for you,” Viddy said as she placed a bag of sliced cheese into the fridge beside the other four.

  “What got to me was the twenty one gun salute. When Sienna started calling for her daddy when she heard the gun shots, it damn near killed me,” I said sadly.

  They all agreed with me.

  Hell, even a few of the men wiped a tear or two away after that one.

  The door behind us opened, causing us all to turn and watch as Cleo walked into the kitchen.

  He looked tired.

  His eyes were all for me.

  “You ready to go, babe?” He asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, just let me finish putting all this up, and then I’ll meet you outside? Okay?”

  He nodded, ruffled Viddy’s hair, and left.

  It didn’t take me long to finish.

  Each of us took some of the nearly forty bags of food with us. Mina had already left with Sienna, and her own ten bags of food.

  “Alright, ladies. I’ll see y’all later,” I called my goodbye.

  A chorus of bye’s were called to my back, and I lifted my hand with two sacks of food, and started towards where I heard Cleo’s voice.

  I found him in the main room, standing with DP and Cord as he told them about Tunnel.

  “He sounded like a good man,” DP said softly.

  “He was,” I agreed.

  They
turned and smiled at me.

  “I’m ready,” I stated the obvious.

  They each walked towards me, divesting me of my bags.

  “Y’all staying with us?” I asked as I walked between the two men, with Cleo at my front, leading the way.

  They each nodded. “Yeah, the hotels were booked solid. So it’s couch and air mattress night at the Caruso residence,” Cord said dryly.

  I gave him a wink. “We can build a fort in the living room and have a pillow fight.”

  Cleo gave me a look over his shoulder and I zipped my mouth up tight.

  Once we reached Cleo’s truck, he opened the door for me and stowed the multiple bags in the floorboard.

  The other two men got into another vehicle, a few car lengths away, and drove out of the parking lot without waiting.

  “Where are they off to in such a hurry?” I asked in surprise.

  “Beer. Lots and lots of beer. This day calls for getting drunk,” Cleo explained as he walked around the front of the truck and got in.

  It did, too. Especially after hearing from the cops that the fire that had taken Tunnel’s life, had also taken an elderly man’s life in the apartment below my own.

  The fire marshal had explained what had happened quite adequately.

  It’d been a nothing but luck on Vanessa’s part.

  We’d never know how exactly she’d gotten to Tunnel, only that she had, and then set the place on fire as she walked out.

  Paired with the fact that every single piece of my furniture was old wood, it’d only acted as extra accelerant, fueling the fire until it raged out of control.

  Tunnel never stood a chance, and surprisingly, neither had I.

  It was only by a divine stroke of fate that left me alive today.

  In all honesty, I should be in that morgue beside Tunnel.

  However, I knew that I’d lived for a reason, and I was going to make Tunnel’s life mean something. Make his death meaningful.

  Before Cleo started the truck, he turned only his head and asked, “Are you ready to go home?”

  Home.

  Home wasn’t something I’d ever thought that I’d have again, but now, looking into Cleo’s eyes, I knew I’d have a home and more with him.

  I’d learned a lot of things over the past few months.